Filipo, my guess would be a mark for a pre-paid letter or a private mail cachet. Let me dwell a little on the very neat Arabic at the top and see if anything is helpful. I haven't used the language for a few years and I'm a bit rusty!

I am afraid that I am unable to find out which knife is used, but I can scan the back side of the cover if that can be useful. There are no any postmarks on the back, so that is the reason why I didn't scan it initially.

Filipo, as for the Arabic text it seems to be explaining about a delayed letter but I'm struggling with the second part of the sentence. I know we have at least one Egyptian member on this board. Maybe he would be able to help?

Maury lists them in their catalog of French African colonies. As far as I can figure out, they are handstamps. Each issuing city had its own design. Octagonal stamps were for commercial mail while circular designs were for mail from the royal court. Each came in five different colors. Most of those I have seen were from Fez.

Scan of the back is important even if it does not have any postmark, like in this case to determine the knife type.

Vignette: The center shows the chariot of Surya, a Vedic God of dispeller of darkness, empowerer of knowledge and the power of sight to visual perception.

The chariot is driven by 7 white horses viz., Gayatri, Vrihati, Ushnik, Jagati, Pankti, Anushtup and Trishtup and the charioteer is Aruna.

The wheels of the chariot has 6 spikes, each symbolizing the 6 seasons viz., summer, pluvia, autumn, pre-winter, winter and spring.

Atop the chariot is the banderole which shows the motto of Jaypur state Yato Dharmastato Jayah meaning "Where there is righteousness, there is victory".

The 4 squares in the 4 corners show the numeral ½ denoting the denomination.The top panel shows the inscription Sawai Jaypur and the left panel the denomination Adh Ana i.e. Half Ana, both in Hindi in Devnagari script.The value is also in the right panel but in Urdu. This imprint is thus trilingual.

Variants of this same vignette were used by Jaypur in its 1904 1st issue and subsequent 1904 Perkins, Bacon and 1911 Jail Press issues and in 1931 Investiture issue.

Here is a clearer illustration of the vignette of the Chariot of Surya as used in Jaypur 1931 ¼A SG 40.

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